b_limo
A friend of mine went with the Active Ls50’s and set up properly, they are amazing! They (Active Ls50’s) don’t seem to care what signal you are feeding them; they always sound pretty dang good. The imaging, timing and coherance are like nothing I’ve heard. I can’t figure out why the Active Ls50’s have this magic to them; initially I thought it was the dac but maybe it has more to do with the dsp?
It’s not the dac. I have the LS50W in a listening trial right now and they actually sound BETTER when I run my own external dac (Schiit Mimby) with Schiit Eitr (for jitter reduction) through the RCA-in on LS50W versus using the USB input on the LS50W from my computer. I can only conclude that the Schiit dac is superior to the dac in the actives. And also that the dac in the actives is very transparent. So maybe it’s the DSP in combination with the amplification in the actives that makes them sound so good (in a smaller room).
I also own the LS50 and was using them with a $1200 amp and a very transparent preamp and they sounded fantastic, but in my room the LS50W sounded a step better. I’m just not happy with only a 1 year warranty on the electronics in the actives. If something fails the entire system is unusable and I’d need to send them away for repair at who knows at what cost. I like having the control in the event of failure, and also upgrade capabilities, with individual components that can be replaced. As a result I might be going back to separate components but I’m still deciding.